I can relate the course of my reasoning in cold blood now, but on
that day of anxious pondering every other consideration was
outweighed by the feeling that I must not go far from Mistress
Lucy. And so I resolved that if I got free I would ask Uncle Moses
to lead me to some spot near by, difficult of access, where I might
lurk while concerting some means of assisting her. It passed my wit
to conceive of any plan that promised success; but certainly I
could do nothing while a prisoner, and to be free was my one
consuming desire.
How impatiently I waited for the dark needs no telling. And some
words I overheard pass between my jailors, as they talked over
their supper, drove me to such a state of desperation that I had
almost there and then dashed myself against the door and ruined
everything.
"'Twill be summat new for Parson Jim," says Jack.
"Ay, 'tis many a year since he tied a knot o' that sort," replied
the other.
"D'ye reckon he can tie it safe and proper, seeing he bean't no
more a parson?" asked Jack.
"Never you fear," says Bill; "once a parson always a parson, as
I've heard tell. 'Tis no matter he's a swab and a tosspot like you
and me, only worse, and fit for nothing but a Newgate galley; he'll
read the words o' the book, if so be he's sober enough to see 'em
(though to be sure his talk is always most pious when he's drunk),
and they'll be lawful man and wife, same as if they'd bin spliced
by the Pope of Rome himself.
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